


Manipulation > Lies

by SerlinaBlack



Series: unrelated MLB stuff [2]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir Has a Crush on Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Adrien Sugar, Alya ..... not salt ig, Canon?, F/M, Lila Rossi's Lies Are Exposed, Lila salt, Overuse of italics, Protective Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir, Someone Take Tags Away From Me, adrien don't need her to be his lady to protect his princess, don't know her, i cherry pick canon, manipulative adrien, maybe only know her a little bit, ok
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:55:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24320923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SerlinaBlack/pseuds/SerlinaBlack
Summary: The first and only time his mother caught him, he was four.His mother stopped himShe wanted him to make real friends.after so many years when Lila Rossi threatened his princess, he got it.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Alya Césaire & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Alya Césaire/Nino Lahiffe
Series: unrelated MLB stuff [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1758016
Comments: 48
Kudos: 1154
Collections: Lila Anon Support Group





	Manipulation > Lies

The first and only time his mother caught him, he was four, Nathalie was being a meanie and wouldn’t let him play so he just…. Forced her hand a bit. He was cold, calculating (for a four year old) and had looks and charisma to back him up. 

His mother stopped him

When he asked why she told him it wasn’t nice to people, and you can't make good friends if you manipulate people all the time. Then they wouldn’t be friends, they would be puppets. 

He didn’t understand why that would be such a bad thing. It's nice to have puppets, they do whatever you want them to. 

But…. Well, his mother was the only person who stayed with him, the only one who didn’t neglect him. So, he listened. He curbed influencing people slowly, stopped telling Chloe what she wanted to hear mixed with what he _wanted_ her to hear and just listened instead, stopped being cold to Nathalie, even stopped avoiding his father. He looked at someone new, ran exactly how they could dance to his tunes and kept that thought in his head. 

He did like galas though, it was a free pass to lie and manipulate to his heart's content. He wasn’t there to make friends and he had both his parents encouraging him. it helped keep their facade. 

"Oh that's terrible!" I don't care about your pantsuit. 

"You look lovely as ever" please for the love of god stop wearing pink, it's not your damn colour. 

"Of course I can see what your wife is doing wrong" she married a stubborn neurotic man like you.

He could be nice though. His mother asked only that of him and he loved her. So, he stopped. 

And then she was gone. 

His father's sudden rush of protectiveness surprised him, not more than it annoyed him, but it did surprise him. Of course then he went on to try to build him into the perfect face of his brand and whatever goodwill was between them vanished, they were more distant than ever and despite Adrien trying for his mother's sake the gaping hole between them never really filled. 

And he went to school, because goddamn he could not stay under his father's tyranny all the time. And hey, isn’t that what his mother wanted? For him to make friends? 

And then Marinette Dupain Cheng came stumbling into his life and for the first time in his life he got blamed for something he didn’t do. It was abrupt and he didn’t realise until later how refreshing the girl was despite only being mad at him. 

He wanted her to notice him. Maybe she could be his friend? 

And then Hawkmoth happened and he got Plagg and then,

Ladybug

He fell for her hard. 

And then, things were going great. Sure, he had a hectic schedule that had to be flexible enough to allow being Chat Noir but that also meant he got to see his lady, he thinks made friends and not mindless puppets.

And while Marinette was... guarded? around Adrien Aggrest, she wasn’t around Chat Noir. So he may be abusing dual identity a little bit to spend time with the blunette. But there's just something about Mari that has him hooked.

And then there was Lila Rossi. 

At first he was amused more than anything. It was fun watching her go around and claim stuff she had no way of proving. He scoffed internally, hers are the kind of lies that collapsed inevitably and left you in a mess. He wondered what would happen when they did. Would she tell a bigger lie to keep it going? Will she give up and take her losses? 

He can't help but hope it happens soon though. Especially with how handsy she gets. He feels the need to take hour long baths just scrubbing himself clean after every encounter with her. 

His Princess doesn’t like letting it go, but she has always been kind. 

Lila however didn’t seem to get the message. At first Adrien thought the anger was because Lila was misleading her friends, but then she lied to get Marinette expelled. Her vendetta against his Princess is personal. 

This won't do. 

So he makes a deal, makes sure Lila thinks she has no other problem from him, and then he starts to plan. 

*****

"You could go through all that trouble, or we could just Cataclysm her. No muss no fuss" Plagg offers and gulps his camembert down. 

"The problem with that is she has everyone believing Princess is a bully. So we can't do anything until she gets discredited." he paces side eyeing the computer. He wonders if he'd be able to just invite Jagged Stone and claim innocence. The singer would probably help given how much he likes Mari. 

"So just google stuff in class and show it to everyone that your girlfriend is innocent, that'll show them She's lying" Plagg burps and watches Adrien from his hovering position. 

Adrien scowls at the kwami 

"I told you Plagg- " 

"Yeah yeah ladybug is your lady and pigtails is your Princess blah blah blah doesn’t change you wish either would be your Girlfriend. " 

Adrien doesn’t grace that with a response. Partly because they had this argument before and partly because Plagg is right but he doesn’t have to bring it up every time he talks about either girl. 

He walks to look out the window only to see Lila walking through the front door. 

"Plagg!" 

The kwami floats beside him and sees what he did. 

"Cataclysm is still an open option" 

Adrien purses his lips, "I'll keep that in mind, but can you listen in to why She's here? I'll hide in the bathroom." 

"Ooh _spying_ , bad holder" 

"One extra wheel of camembert" 

"Deal" 

*****

Lila spying on him for his father…. Complicated things , not enough to stop him, nothing could do that when his Princess is the one in danger, but it also meant he had to make sure Lila was bad for the brand name before he mentions not working with her. 

Although he had to commend the liar for being this stupid. whether she forgot that he lives in that house too was anyone's guess. 

*****  
Bumping into Jagged Stone when visiting Chloe? Why what a coincidence! 

The man was only too eager to surprise his favourite niece after hearing she was having some troubles and was down recently and maybe doing something creative would help her from the flunk. Penny was easily swayed to see this girl who Jagged supposedly wrote a song about. 

So Adrien Aggrest, local sunshine boy, obviously told them to keep it on the down low to surprise Mari; she'd be so glad to see him! In fact he should come visit the day after tomorrow, since he has a recording to get to the next day. That'd be a great time for him to surprise Mari and even commission a jacket or two. 

The next part would be harder but well, he did not really let his… talents in lying die. 

"Oh, Principal Damocles, Lila has been nothing but a sweetheart. But She's not telling us who's bullying her! Maybe you could call her mother and get her to help?" 

"No no no! Don’t tell her then she'd close up even more! Maybe…. Oh I know! I can contact her tomorrow on behalf of the school ! Don’t worry sir, you can count on me, I'll explain everything to her. " Everything I _want_ her to know. 

"Madame Rossi! Hello! I am a friend of Lila's. There seems to be an issue with the phone company so the school doesn’t have your contact info? Anyway, Principal Damocles has asked to meet you for some serious matters…." 

"I am so sorry for this situation Madame Rossi, but I assure you the bully will be caught and dealt with…."

"I think It's best if you don't mention this to Lila, because she could inadvertently tip the bully off to something wrong happening….." 

*******

He went to the liar's house right after she left for school, he may or may not have been standing for her to leave for a while and in the end he's a little late, but nothing a little early morning photo shoot can't explain, and he did have a morning photo shoot, just…. The day before. 

He takes his seat in the back and looks forward only for his princess to stumble in a second later. 

His Princess…. Looks gloomy, her eyes don't really hold the usual shine, no cheer to her steps, she looks at Alya and Alya looks away. Adrien grimaces. He whispers a greeting and scribbles on a torn page.

 _'Mari, I'm sorry about what I said about Lila'_ he passes the note with puppy eyes to go and hopes to god she can forgive him. 

She startles and frowns when she reads it, glancing at him confused and scribbles before handing the note back. 

_‘You don’t really have anything to be sorry for?’_

_‘If i had known that she would be targeting you and hurting you this much, I’d never tell you to not expose her. I honestly thought she was just lying to get people to like her and nothing more. But she’s going too far for it to be just for attention.’_ the note was pushed back to Marinette. She smiled at him ruefully before writing something back. 

_‘You didn’t know Adrien so it’s not your fault. Honestly I’m just upset she’s doing so much wrong but still doing exactly as she said she would.’_ Adrien frowned at her so she took the paper back to elaborate 

_‘She confronted me in the bathroom. She told me she would turn all of my friends against me and that’s exactly what she’s doing.’_

Adrien’s blood was boiling, _  
‘She threatened you?’_ he passed the note, noticing his hand shaking in anger. Mari just shrugged. 

Adrien took a deep breath to calm himself down,  
_‘You have me Mari. You’ll always have me by your side.’_ A bit strong, and probably more romantic than he wanted to let on? definitely. But the smile he got in return was worth the world and more.

*****

Adrien woke up, for the first time in a long time with a smile on his face, today he’s going to prove his Princess correct. 

He left for classes early, muttering about group projects and setting up to Nathalie. She bought it, of course she did, neither herself or his father had the time to actually fact check with the school, and not like their favourite little spy was going to be free. He thought wryly. 

The beginning of classes were much of the same as it had been the last few days. Lila arrives, everyone flocks to her for her Adventurous Tales. Adrien secretly rolls his eyes. Mari runs in at the last possible minute and practically dives to her seat in the back, Lila sneers as she had been doing since Adrien moved to the back. Everyone somehow misses her sneering. 

Adrien hopes they have to beg for his princess' forgiveness. Heck he hopes she still doesn’t forgive them, the way they just cast her aside with just a pretty lie and crocodile tears repulsed Adrien. 

He was slightly surprised when he first realised how angry he actually was at his classmates for not trusting Mari. After all, they're his friends too, or he wants them to be. But, he supposes, if they could cast out Mari, their everyday Ladybug, just like that; how much does their friendship really mean? 

It was after the first period when the commotions started. The voices stopped moving right outside their classroom and Adrien idly wondered if Jagged brought fang along for there to be that much shouting. 

"It's time to rock and roll!" Jagged slammed the door open with a grin and marched in the classroom an exasperated Penny following him closely behind. And, Adrien was disappointed to see no crocodile in sight. Pity. 

"Jagged stone!" someone exclaimed unnecessarily. 

"Monsur Stone! What are you doing here?" Madame Bustier asks, sounding less surprised than anyone else would've been. He can't really blame her since the class has the most people to get akumatized ever and the poor woman handling it as best as she could. 

"I heard my favourite little lady was feeling down lately, I came to put some rock and roll back in her life!" he says joyfully. 

He glances at his princess to see her gobsmacked face. 

Adorable. 

He may or may not be blushing, but Let's not dwell on that right now. 

He glances to the front to see Lila stiffening and everyone looking at her excited. He fights off a grin. 

"Marinette!" Jagged called, "my favourite niece " he walked up to their seats bypassing a dilemma affected Lila and a confused class. 

"Uncle Jagged! It's nice to see you. I didn’t realise you were even back to Paris from your tour?" she says briefly hugging the singer and beaming at him. 

"I wrapped up two days ago actually. And I wanted to commission you for a new jacket , I had one made on the tour but the designer just didn’t get my style at all!" 

"Oh! Sure! I'll swing by the hotel after classes to discuss what style you want." 

"Uh- Mr. Stone? Didn’t you want to meet Lila?" Kim pointed out with a raised eyebrow. Adrien turned his head so they didn’t see him grin. He could still hear Plagg's quiet snickers though. 

"What's a Lila? " Jagged asked, confused as well. If he needed another reason for the man to be his favourite singer, this is it. Still he smothers his urge to shout out 'a lying bitch that's what' and enjoys his show. 

"You know, the girl who saved your cat? She got tinnitus when she was saving the cat too? You wrote a song about her to show your appreciation? " it was Alya this time. 

"I've never had a cat, Penny's allergic to them" he points his thumb at the woman and shrugs,  
"Besides, even if I did fang would eat him." 

"You didn’t write a song about her?" Nino asks heartbroken. Adrien winces a little. 

"I don’t even know this girl." Jagged confirmed oblivious to the growing hostility in the room.

“Is this the Girl who was claiming She got Tinnitus saving His cat?-" Penny piped up looking around the class and seeing the slumped form of Lila in front of the class. “-Did you know you could get sued for libels like that? Jagged never had a cat and he would most definitely not endanger a minor!” 

“You lied to us?” Mylene’s bottom lip wobbled. 

Chloe scoffed, “It’s almost like someone already told you that she was a liar but you all chose to ignore it” 

“No, No! That’s not-” Lila stammers 

“What else have you lied about?” Nathaniel says suspiciously. And that descended the class in a bigger chaos. 

His princess looked at him with narrowed eyes, “Adrien, Did you do something?” she whispers. He gives her his best 'I'm-innocent-why-would-you-think-I'm-responsible-for-anything-ever-at-all' face but her face doesn’t change. 

The only other person who was so unmoved by his lies is his lady and Adrien can't help but wonder if he has a type. 

"I bumped into Jagged when I was visiting Chloe and he knows I know you, so we were talking about you. I probably slipped up a little about how you have been down recently." he whispers back glancing at the chaos before him. Mme. Bustier was trying to calm the class down. 

Jagged threw Mari a hasty goodbye and told her to meet him after school to discuss the jacket. 

"Thank you, Adrien" she says softly as ever with an unknown emotion coating her voice. 

He pulled her in an one sided hug, "I told you I'll always be there for you didn’t I? " 

Just as the singer left, another commotion moved along the hallway. 

"And I'm not done yet Mari." he says and subtly points at the door. 

"LILA BEATRIZ ROSSI! " came the voice of none other than Mme Rossi. 

Marinette turned to Adrien wide eyed. 

"Maman?!" the girl in question yelped. 

"What is the meaning of this?" the woman waves her hands around as though asking about the school itself. 

"Mille Rossi! You have been lying on nearly every document that you gave the school!" says principal Damocles following behind the woman closely. 

"You told me school was closed because ladybug couldn’t keep it safe!" the woman demanded of her daughter. 

"Hey! Ladybug keeps everyone safe perfectly well I'll have you know. " Chloe berates. 

"I thought you were best friends with ladybug! Why would you say that about her?" Alya gasps. 

"Wait, maman, Principal Damocles, Alya, I can explain! " 

"You mean you can _lie_ some more" Adrien folded his arms across his chest, it wouldn’t do for him to say nothing and just watch his trap close around her, no that would be suspicious. 

"Adrien! You have to believe me! Ladybug is my friend -" she tries again. 

"Save it Lila that ship sailed long ago when Ladybug told me herself she isn’t your friend the first time you talked to me." 

"Dude you knew she was lying? Why didn’t you tell us?" Nino gives Adrien the perfect opening. 

"Because none of you would believe me? None of you believed Marinette, And bar Alya, who is supposed to be her best friend, all of you have known her for years!" 

Most of the class winced at the reminder the principal and Mme Bustier looked down in shame. 

"If you believed Marinette was capable of bullying someone with nothing but a few lies from Lila why would you ever believe me? You didn’t even know me before this year. " 

"He's right you know, I mean I know I've done some stuff to Dupain Cheng, and she never once hurt _me_ physically, why would she ever bother with Lie-la?" Chloe stood up checking her nails, "not to mention _I'm_ one of the ones who believed her when all her 'friends' just took this liar at face value?" 

Adrien smiled at her, she really was trying to be a better person. Marinette on the other hand was floored at the admission. 

"Not to mention she threatened Marinette in the girls bathroom? " ahhh adding fuel to Lila burning pyre, he _loves_ doing that. 

"You. Did. What?!" Marinet jumped and vaulted across the room to hold Alya back from tearing Lila a new one, ok, maybe he can find it in himself to forgive her. She may be a little bullheaded but she does care about doing the right thing. 

"Mille Césaire! Please calm down! We will take steps to ensure Mille Rossi gets proper punishment!" Damocles tries to reason. 

"We don’t even know everything she did! She's been bullying Mari, She's been lying to us and in her documentations but is that all? How do we know she didn’t do anything else?" Alya demands. 

Adrien didn’t have to fake shifting uncomfortably when he says, ".....Actually, uh, she keeps touching me? Even when I tell her not to and her nails are very sharp so when she grips too hard she scratches me and leaves scratch marks. " 

(What he doesn't see is a purple butterfly at his class window that turns around and leaves to where it came from.) 

The class gasps. 

"You didn’t tell me that." and oh no, his princess looked ready to cry. That is not right. He has to fix this. 

"You had enough on your plate without worrying about me Mari, you were being _bullied_ besides I knew her lies would collapse on her at some point" he tries to soothe and moves towards her slowly. 

"You didn’t have to go through that alone! You’ve been supporting me ever since everyone turned their back on me. _Please_ Adrien if anything like this happens again, just please talk to me, I want to be there for you too." her eyes were shining with tears and he didn’t know what he should do. 

"Adrien why are you lying? Did she tell you to? Is that why You're saying these things about me?" if being a gentleman wasn’t drilled into his head since he was a child, Adrien would have bashed Lila's skull in. 

"That's enough Lila! You lie, forge documents, bully a poor girl and now sexual assault?! Is there anything you didn’t do?" Adrien felt bad for her mother, the woman did nothing to deserve this. 

"Maman please, you have to believe me, he's the one who's lying. I don't know why bu-" she was stopped when her mother had apparently had enough, 

"Shut up, shut up you evil child I don't want to hear a word you have to say. Come with me to the principal's office to see what can be done with you. " she grabbed her daughter and walked to the principal's office with Damocles and Bustier following behind. 

"Please don’t leave the class and don’t make a commotion!" is all their teacher could say before she had to catch up to the principal. 

"Mari,.... girl…. I'm so so sorry, I don't have any defence, what I did was wrong and I've been such a terrible friend to you." Alya says after a minute of silence. Her eyes tearful. 

Mari, his princess, the kindest soul he met, put on a wobbly smile for her, "It's ok Alya. " 

"No. No it isn’t. But I'm going to try my best to make up to you from now on." she swallowed, "Can we be friends again? " she tried in a small voice sounding like she wasn’t trying to cry. 

Mari threw herself at the ombre haired girl and they both spin in the momentum of the hug. 

"I owe you an apology to dude, I failed as your best friend. I didn’t even support you when you supported Mari, I didn’t stand up for you even when Lila was making you uncomfortable. " Nino had his cap in his hand and was wringing the thing. 

It would be so, so easy to manipulate everyone in the class to his advantage right now. Everyone feels guilty and guilt makes people malleable. But, he doesn’t want puppets, he didn’t understand it at first when his mother said it, but he gets it now what Lila wanted was puppets, but Adrien, Adrien wants friends. 

"I'll forgive you so long as you play mecha strike three with me today. Playing with Mari is good but maybe winning every once or twice would be nice. " he smiles and gets pulled into a hug. 

This of course opens up a barrage of apologies from every student in the class.

Adrien closes his eyes and thinks of his mother. 'I finally got it mama, and I have friends too'

**Author's Note:**

> Me starting this : eh, this'll be short and simple a thousand words at most  
> 2000 words later : what the heck happened?


End file.
